Autumn Falls Review

Goodreads

TITLE: Autumn Falls

AUTHOR: Bella Thorne with Elise Allen

PUBLISHER: Delacorte Press

PUBLICATION DATE: 11/11/2014

PAGES: 224

FORMAT: ARC

SOURCE: Amazon Vine

MY RATING: 

BACK COVER SUMMARY: With her fiery red hair, new-girl outsider status, and tendency to be a total klutz, Autumn Falls definitely isn't flying below the radar at Aventura High. Luckily, she makes some genuine friends--but she also manages to get on the wrong side of the school's queen bee.

When Autumn vents her feelings in a journal that belonged to her late father, suddenly her wildest wishes start coming true. Is it a coincidence? Or can writing in the journal solve all her problems? And if the journal doesn't work that way, is there a bigger purpose for it--and for her?

OVERALL IMPRESSION: I'd seen Bella in her Disney show, as well as in Blended and thought she seemed like a great, well-rounded person, so I was curious when I heard that she had a book coming out. I feel like the story that she wrote was fine, but could have been better. The idea behind the book is a good one, but I think Bella needs to work on her writing skills some more--although, I believe if she keeps at it, she can become a great writer. When I was reading the book, I could definitely tell that it was written by someone of a younger age by the way the words sounded as I was reading them in my mind. 

I enjoyed the resolution of the book. It was predictable, but still cute and fun to read. I hope Bella continues to work on writing as I would love to see what she can accomplish.

CHARACTERS: I really liked the character of J.J. He has a great personality, and I wish I could have seen more of him throughout the book. The main character, Autumn, was great as well. I felt like I really understood her and what she was feeling.

COVER: I have mixed feelings on the cover. I don't usually like covers with faces on them, but this one is only half a face. I really like how they painted the model's nails with the sparkly polish and the heart detail on her left hand.

Populazzi by Elise Allen (ARC)

TITLE: Populazzi

AUTHOR: Elise Allen

PUBLISHER: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

RELEASE DATE: 8/1/2011

PAGES: 400

MY RATING: 3/5

GOODREADS SUMMARY: Cara has always dreamed of being a Populazzi, one of the popular crowd. But it’s not until she changes schools that she gets a shot at it, thanks to her best friend Claudia’s crazy plan. The idea is simple: The rungs of The Ladder are relationships. First get a boyfriend who's ranked low, then climb up through more boyfriends until you're not just one of the Populazzi, but the Supreme Populazzi. Yet what starts off as a fairy tale turns into a somewhat dark comedy of errors. Just when Cara reaches the top, her life hits rock bottom. She wonders why she wanted to be popular in the first place—and if there’s any way to live happily ever after now.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: This was a cute fun read. We've all gone through high school so we all know what it's like wanting to be liked by other people and to have lots of friends. The book made me want to keep reading to see whether or not Cara would fit in with the crowd she desperately wanted attention from.

CHARACTERS: I liked the main character, Cara. There were some parts of the book where she wasn't the greatest most selfless person, but she is in high school and she is worried about fitting in with the popular crowd, which is something that I think is pretty common. The two characters that I did not like at all were Cara's mother and Cara's stepfather. I feel that they were way too harsh on her and it was completely out of line the way that they treated her. We all make mistakes, but the way that Karl (Cara's stepfather) handled the punishment was totally unacceptable. My favorite character was Archer. He was just all around a great guy.

COVER: The cover is cute. I love all of the bright colors and the girl on it looks the way I would imagine Cara to look.

*I recieved a copy of this book from netgalley.